


Rebuild What's Gone Unsteady (And See It Through With Wiser Hands)

by mysweetadeline



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-09 16:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15271452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysweetadeline/pseuds/mysweetadeline
Summary: "Go home", Tony almost laughs at the thought. How can someone go home when they don’t know where home is?OR10 places Tony goes before he returns home.Title: People Get Ready - The Frames





	1. Xandar

**Author's Note:**

> Am I starting another series before finishing my previous one? Yes. Sorry, but Tony is what I keep coming back to. Both will be completed I promise. 
> 
>  
> 
> More tags will be added.

Surprisingly, he finds himself landing in the middle of a once vibrant and modern planet, now completely destroyed and desolate. 

 

The ride there had been uncomfortable, the thick feeling of despair settling in around them as Tony fights against the daunting truth inside his head and Nebula stares straight forwards into the vast endlessness of space, her eyes unblinking. 

 

Once or twice Tony’s breathing became erratic and labored, and once or twice his hand came up to swipe hastily at his eyes. If Nebula noticed any of this, she doesn’t say. 

 

As they near, they see the smoke before anything else. The thick fog of destruction rising above the surface of the planet. Tony’s grip on the steering wheel turns white. 

 

The battered down space pod makes an unflattering sound when it lands, and the dust that flies up obscures the view for at least couple minutes before it settles back down to reveal the devastation.

 

Tony’s heart aches at the sight.

 

The bodies. The burning buildings. The mark that Thanos inflicted. 

 

“Is this the place you wanted?” Tony’s voice is just above a whisper. 

 

The woman with cobalt blue skin nods her head once, firmly, her metal parts glinting in the sunlight. 

 

“Xandar,” she says, her voice almost mechanical, “I used dream about summers here when it got too cold in my cell.”

 

Tony doesn’t want to pity her, because he’s felt sympathy too many times and hates it, so instead he says “Let’s get a closer look” and climbs out of the pod. They trudge through the debris together. 

 

Echoing around the crumbling buildings, someone is screaming. 

 

She’s already moving, beginning to run and leaving him behind. 

 

“Wait,” he calls, and because he doesn’t think, he never thinks, he asks “What about your sister?” And the blue alien stops dead in her tracks.

 

She stares at him, her eyes seem to twitch and her lips seem to tremble, just a little. 

 

“Gamora is dead,” her voice is stone, “but these people are not. She will have to wait.” 

 

“Sorry,” Tony blurts out and  _ god _ he’s bad at this. “Let me help,” he tries again, “Let me help you”  _ Don’t leave me  _ “Let me help you rescue these people”  _ Don’t leave me alone. _

 

She blinks. “You’re injured,” and she non-discreetly points to the the gaping wound tearing through makeshift bandage in his side. Tony winces, his mind reminding him once again of the throbbing pain and the need for medical attention. But he stays adamant, “I want to help,” he says, determined. 

 

She laughs. It’s a harsh sound that cuts through the air. “Go home Terran, there are living people waiting for you.” 

 

“It’s Tony,” he says, and he already knows the battle’s lost.

 

Staring at him again, something in her eyes almost softens.

 

“Nebula.”

 

And with that she took off, her metal parts flashing behind her.

 

He sighs, trudges back through the debris, and climbs back in the space pod, his fingers hovering over the controls. 

 

“Go home”, Tony almost laughs at the thought. How can someone go home when they don’t know where home is? 

 

_ “We all need family, the Avengers are yours.” _

 

Tony pushes that thought away, but the other thoughts that he’s been fighting so hard against resurface. 

 

_ “I don’t wanna go, please, Mr. Stark.”  _

 

Tony puts his face in his hands. 


	2. Rhodey

One should never be left alone, all alone, in the emptiness of space and the overflowing thoughts of their own brain. 

 

Tony is an expert at pretending, and so he pretends that he’s on a solo getaway in the clouds and constellations, where nothing can bother him. 

 

It’s not hard to pretend, not when it’s quiet,  _ so _ quiet, and peaceful,  _ too  _ peaceful. 

 

His hands have other ideas however. He supposes they’re taking him home, to Earth. 

 

But what even is “home” anymore. Because his home could very well be here, surrounded by the millions of stars. 

Tony wonders who’s left. 

 

It’s then that he fully acknowledges the pressure between his left hip and the suit. The feeling of an object, something square, digging into his side and he realizes, he realizes that -

 

It’s the burner phone. 

 

He stares at it for what could’ve been hours, his thoughts jumbling together. An anger that he once thought was long gone comes back at full force, and Tony clenches his fists. 

 

Heart pounding, he flips it open and stares at the two tiny words and he’s been here before, sat in a chair or lay in his bed and stared at these two words, thought of these two words, cursed at these two words, wondered at these two words, all while his finger hovered over the button but never quite managed to press it. 

 

Tony can’t handle it now either, so instead he dials in a number he knows by heart, only to find his thumb stabbing the delete button.  _ I don’t deserve to,  _ is what he tells himself, but really, he’s too afraid of what happens if there’s no one on the other side. 

 

He sighs, then dials the number he knows by memory. 

 

The phone rings for far too long, and each ring is a stab to Tony’s already cracked heart. 

 

Rhodey picks up on the 5th ring, right before the dreaded trip to voicemail, and Tony has to physically keep himself from jumping with joy. 

 

“Hello?” the signal’s bad, and the voice is too quiet, but Tony could recognize it anywhere. 

 

“Hello? Who is this?” Rhodey speaks again and it come through clearer this time but Tony almost wishes it doesn’t because his voice, beneath the dejection and sorrow, is a bit of hope. 

 

For what, Tony isn’t sure. 

 

(He knows it’s for him.) 

 

Rhodey says a couple more things into the phone, each sounding more garbled then the next as the signal cuts in and out. 

 

Tony can’t bring himself to hang up. 

 

Eventually, the line cuts out entirely and he is left in the silence again. But he laughs and it fills the space, and suddenly a pressure is lifted from his chest, and  _ he’s alive,  _

 

_ Rhodey’s alive _ . 

 

Tony’s good at pretending, he always has been. He pretended he didn’t care when Howard threw his model of an airplane into the trash, he pretended he only needed a portion of his mother’s love, as that was all she was willing to give, he pretended he could be the man that deserves Pepper Potts, he pretended he was Tony Stark, hot and successful, a hero. 

 

He can’t pretend, however, that he doesn’t miss them. 

 

Earth is in sight, and Tony wonders exactly  _ where _ on Earth he’s planning to go. 

 

_ Home _ , his heart tugs at him,  _ go home.  _

 

He shakes his feelings away, and decides that he would do the right thing this time, that after being selfish his whole life he would do the selfless thing, the hard thing that needed to be done. 

 

His hands steer the controls and the space pod heads towards the general direction of Queens. 


	3. Queens

It’s been a while since he’s been to this part of New York, where the building aren’t quite as tall and the cars don’t drive quite as fast. It’s still familiar, more so than an alien planet or a busted spaceship. 

 

Tony had parked the space pod in the old Avengers Tower first, as gloomy as the city it’s in, and stripped of the battered down suit and found something more discreet to wear. He took a couple thousand dollars from an old safe he kept around and shoved the cash into the front pocket of the bulky brown pants that he found in a dusty cupboard.

 

Thinking about it, they might’ve just belonged to Bruce and his shirt might’ve been Clint’s and his shoes, looking at them, were definitely Steve’s -

 

There are traces of all of them here; old clothes tucked in the corner of shelves, miscellaneous objects scattered around the bland stone floor, lingering scents surrounding the hallway - 

 

And that’s just it isn’t it, he’s embodied all the things they’ve left behind, an echo of what once was. 

 

( _ He _ is what they’ve left behind)

 

Tony patches up his wound with a spare medical kit, and picked up one of his sports cars that he forgot to clear from the garage before it began it’s destruction and started the ignition without hesitation, his grip on the steering wheel too tight. 

 

He left the tower and head off.

 

Queens is quieter than he remembers, but he supposes everywhere is quiet after what happened. He parks his car a block from the apartment - Peter’s apartment, and strolls down the dimly lit street as it starts to snow. 

 

He passes by a department store, one of the only stores open on the street, and he strains his ears to hear sounds of a radio coming from inside. 

 

“Many… all gathered… a pandemic that…officials say to continue… left wondering… where are the Avengers?”

 

Tony backs away. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and clenches his teeth, his head pounding again. 

 

He’s numb as he walks into the apartment building, taking the stairs to prolong the inevitable, but at least it gives him more time to plan his words. 

 

But every sentence, every combination seems  _ wrong _ , because how on earth do you tell a mother that you lead her son into a hopeless fight and you failed to prevent her son from dying.

 

He arrives at the front door too soon, and he hasn’t had enough time to plan and for some reason his hand is already knocking on the door and she’s taking far too long to answer and Tony can’t hear any sounds coming from inside and  _ what if,  _ what if she’s gone too. 

 

He should be punished for the small dose of relief he feels at that thought. 

 

But the door opens, after two minutes of silence, quickly and frantically, the doorknob rattling under May’s shaky grip. 

 

She looks much, much older than the last time Tony saw her, her hair messy and unwashed, her winkles etched on her face, her eyes dark and bloodshot, and Tony opens his mouth but his throat is dry. He tries again, swallowing first and says “May”, trying to make his voice sound neutral but she knows, she probably knew the moment he showed up alone in the doorway.

 

Her eyes fill with tears, but surprisingly, they don’t spill out. Instead, she grabs Tony’s arm, her grip like a vice and pulls him onto the living room couch.

 

“They can come back, right?” Her voice is strained and her eyes glint eerily under the dim living room light.

 

He’s taken aback, having expected this conversation to go somewhere else entirely.

 

She keeps talking, her hands gesturing wildly. “I mean, I was at a grocery store when it happened, and suddenly the cashier in front of me is gone and so is the guy in the next aisle and the woman in line behind me and that’s not possible is it? I mean people don’t die like that. They don’t just vanish.”

 

Staring at him intensely, she says, “You know the news outlets all say you're gonna fix this, you and the Avengers. The half-world pandemic or the dusting or whatever you call it.” Her eyes widen. “You can fix this, right?" 

 

Tony takes in a deep breath. 

 

“I don’t know.” He tells her the truth because he’s always taken the easy route out and his white lies have tangled themselves into a web of self guilt. 

 

“I don’t know, May,” he says softly, “I really don’t know.”

 

“Oh, um, okay,” her voice is small and it breaks, the certainty from before completely gone. The tears spill now. She wipes them away quickly and glances at Tony, her gaze softening, “You know, he just wanted to be like you. When I found out about the suit, he told me to not worried, said Mr. Stark will take care of me. He wanted to be a hero.” 

 

“He is a hero,” Tony puts a hand on her shoulder, “he put up such a good fight. He’s a good kid.”

 

May smiles sadly through the grief. “You’re talking like he’s still here.” 

 

Tony rubs his eyes. “God, May, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have let him get involved in the first place. Maybe things would’ve been different.”

 

“And maybe things would’ve been exactly the same,” May shrugs, “You were a good influence on him, he needed a father figure.”

 

She then stands up and disappears into another room, coming out with a picture in her hand.

 

“Here,” she says as she hands him the image of Peter when he was younger, holding a big foam baseball glove. “That’s when he was twelve, we took a drive to Boston just so he could see the  game. He hates getting his picture taken, but I snuck one in that day.” 

 

Tony takes the picture and fingers the edges.

 

“It’s just in case that, you know, they dont…” May wipes away more tears and clears her throat. “So you have a memory of him.” 

 

“Thank you,” Tony does his best to smile at her as she walks him to the door. 

 

“I’ll be here waiting,” is all she says as she closes the door behind him. 

 

He takes the elevator this time, and stares at the grainy photograph the whole way down. The gleam of hope in his eyes, the youthful look to his smile, Peter reminds Tony of someone, someone who has been tucked in the back of his mind… 

 

It’s not until the elevator dings at the lobby that something in Tony’s mind clicks.

 

Harley. 


	4. Harley

Tony ditches his flashy sports car and settles on a 1996 Volkswagen pickup truck, high on fuel and perfect for a road trip. The vendor raised his eyebrows when Tony walked in, his hair unkept and his grey shirt rumpled. But when Tony pulled out 15000 from his pocket like it’s a stick of gum, the vendor’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. 

 

Knowing that it’ll be a long drive, Tony stops by a shabby 7-Eleven first, stocks up in energy drinks and protein bars and continues on his way. 

 

Strangely, during the entire trip, there were rarely other cars, or people for that matter. 

 

“Half-world pandemic, huh?” Tony mutters under his breath, almost laughing at the thought. Of all the people that are gone, he, somehow, is still left. 

 

He might just be on a wild goose chase and he knows it but maybe, just maybe the kid’s alive and Tony  _ needs _ to know,  _ needs _ to know that he didn’t let yet another person down. 

 

(“So you’re just gonna leave me here? Like my dad?”)

 

“Don’t worry, Harley,” Tony says to no one in particular as he adjust the rearview mirror to fix his tousled hair, “I’m coming back.”

 

By the time Tony arrives in the rurals of Tennessee, the sun has begun it’s descent down and the clouds stretch across the horizon, pink and peach colours painting the sky. 

 

It’s pretty, possibly the prettiest thing Tony has ever seen and it’s also because it’s so  _ peaceful _ , with half the houses empty and the streets quiet it feels like nature could finally breathe. 

 

He pulls in next to the old garage, the fear building up inside his chest, and at the exact same time a bicycle dings as its tires squeak to a stop and a teenager with shaggy brown hair hops off. 

 

“Who’s there?” the kid shouts, approaching the car slowly with the butt of a flashlight pointed forwards like a weapon, his voice uneasy. 

 

Tony opens the car door slowly. “Hey, kid,” he says cautiously as he gets out.

 

Harley squints at him and shakes his head as if he’s trying to get out of a dream. “Is it really you?” his voice edges on disbelief. 

 

Tony points at himself. “Tony Stark, the mechanic.” 

 

Dropping the flashlight, Harley smiles, and for just a second Tony catches a glimpse of the little boy he met all those years ago who still had that look of wonder in his eyes.

 

The look is gone now, his eyes are dark and sad. “Sorry about that,” he says, gesturing to the flashlight, “when people first started to disappear, a bunch of looters came around to this neighborhood.” 

 

“Oh,” Tony says, having not even thought of that. He clears his throat. “You holding up okay? How old are you again? Twelve, thirteen -”

 

“I’m fifteen. And I’m doing just fine,” Harley’s voice toughens. “Mom’s still here, but that kid who bullied me at school isn’t,” he frowns, “Don’t know where dad is, they’ve been calling out on the TV some names of the people who disappeared in our area. Mom sits in front of the TV everyday but,” he shrugs, “nothing.” 

 

Tony nods, not knowing what to say.

 

“What’re you doing here anyways”? Harley asks. 

 

“Wanted to check on you,” he says, and it’s not a lie, but Harley tilts his head at him. 

 

“Kid,” Tony says, sighing in defeat, “I’m lost. I don’t know where to go.”

 

Harley stares at him curiously. “You must have family, or a home or something to go back to.” 

 

Tony ignores this, but the pounding in his head comes back.

 

“And don’t call me ‘kid’,” he adds adamantly, “my name is Harley.” 

 

“Well, Harley,” Tony smiles, the kid’s stubborn nature reminding him of himself, “know a place where I can lay low for a while?” 

 

Harley considers the question. “I do…” he draws out slowly, “but shouldn’t you be out there saving the world and all, I mean all the news outlets say that -”

 

“- I know what they say,” Tony cuts him off harshly but instantly regrets it when Harley’s face drops. He softens his voice. “Listen kid - Harley, truth is I don’t know how to fix this and don’t know where to go, so it would be real helpful if I can go to a place where I can just collect my thoughts and then start on a game plan.” 

 

“Okay, okay,” Harley says, his brows furrowing, “there is this one place, you probably wouldn’t even get spotted either, it’s in a little town, Mt. Juliet. My uncle Tim has a place there that he never uses, but the rent is always paid for and there’s a spare key under the mat.”

 

Tony grins. “Sounds perfect,” and he hands him a map for him to pinpoint the area. 

 

“You know,” Harley rocks back and forth on his feet, his voice hopeful as he hands the map back with a dot and an address scribbled on, “I could come with you. It would be lonely being alone all the time.” 

 

“I’m used to it,” the words come out before Tony can stop them and they hang there, sad and pitiful, in the frosty air. 

 

Surprising both of them, Tony pulls Harley into a quick and awkward one arm hug, but it’s a hug regardless. “You did good, kid,” he says, his words echoing the past, “Now, go back and take care of your mom. She’s probably worried about you.”

 

Harley smiles up at him, accepting defeat. “Okay,” he says, a newfound sense of maturity shown through his words. “See you around Tony.”

 

They wave, and Tony ignores the pounding in his head. Instead, he smiles as he hops back into his truck, props the map on the dashboard and starts off on the drive. 

 

The sun is setting, the pinks and peach muddling together, and Tony watches Harley’s little figure become smaller and smaller as he drives further and further away. 

 

He can’t help but feel as though he’s let everyone down.


	5. Natasha

He’s been staying in Uncle Tim’s drab apartment for a while, on the outskirts of Nashville, and Harley was right - almost no one has heard of the Iron Man. 

 

He probably gets recognized  _ sometimes _ , but no one seems to have the energy to care. 

 

The town is a ghost town, with only three tall apartment buildings, each emptier than the next. There’s one school with swings filled with ghost and one bar down the street, dirtier inside than the alleyway beside it.

 

Tony goes often, but it’s like going to a cemetery. There’s only ever three or four customers, all silent and reclusive, and the bartender hands them drinks subconsciously, not even asking for tips. 

 

At the bar today, he orders his usual shot of tequila on ice - with half a lime thanks - and begins to get lost in the endless spiral of his own thoughts, when suddenly, he hears the clinking of bells; another customer, a woman, swallowed by a long grey coat with large black sunglasses covering her face, her hair hidden under a panama hat. Tony wonders what her story is. 

 

Turning back to his drink, he takes a rather large sip and almost chokes when the woman appears on the seat beside him, so quiet he didn’t notice her slide in. 

 

“Hey stranger,” the woman says, and if it wasn’t the voice that gave her away, it was the way she holds herself, the way her posture is completely relaxed yet her neck is strained and her feet dig into the floor. 

 

“Natasha,” Tony gasps, the air leaving his lungs in surprise. 

 

She smiles at him, and Tony sees his own expression in the reflection of her sunglasses; shocked, confused, and in a way, relieved.

 

As she takes off her disguise, Tony notes that her hair is lighter than he remembered and the circles around her eyes show that she’s not sleeping well either. 

 

It’s still Natasha though, Natasha in the flesh. 

 

“Nat,” Tony is unsure where to begin, “How - how are you?”

 

She waves her hand away, dismissing his efforts. “Skip the formalities Tony, if you really cared you would have called by now.”

 

Tony frowns, the shame creeping in. “I - I was going to,” he stutters, “but I thought - I wasn’t sure if -”

 

(I’m not ready)

 

“You don’t know what I’ve been through.” Tony defends, his voice edging on anger. 

 

Natasha closes her eyes and when she speaks again, she is composed. “We’ve been through a lot too.” 

 

There’s the shame again.

 

“Have you tried contacting Pepper yet?” her voice is unreadable. 

 

Tony’s heart flips at that. “No.” 

 

“She’s alive.” 

 

Tony’s heart almost flips out of his chest at that. He’d been pushing the thought of her down, too scared and ashamed to try to find her but - but  _ Pepper’s alive.  _

 

Natasha nudges him, and he snaps back into reality. 

 

“Call her.” It sounds like a demand.

 

He shakes his head. “I don’t deserve too - I mean, she deserves better.” 

 

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Men and their pity parties.” But thankfully, she doesn’t probe further. Instead, she points at his wound, the badly wrapped bandages showing through his shirt. 

 

“You need to get that looked at,” she says, her voice almost worried.

 

Tony shakes his head even though he knows she’s right. “I’m okay.”

 

Natasha shrugs, then downs 10 more of his shots of tequila like she’s drinking medicine for a high fever, and Tony watches her warily.  

 

“You gonna tell the others?” he asks, choosing his words carefully, because he can’t ask who’s left, he can’t do that to her or himself. 

 

Her green eyes pierce his as she studies him, like he’s some kind of tourist attraction that no one passing by really understands unless they’ve brought a brochure, and Tony feels as though he can sink into the floor under her stare. 

 

“No,” she finally says, “no, I don’t think I will.”

 

“Thanks,” Tony says, surprised but mostly grateful, because this has been hard enough and he doesn’t need more of them tracking him down. 

 

Silence falls between them, and Tony shifts his chair slightly and fixates his gaze on some grimy wall in the grimy bar, his hands fidgeting under the bar table. 

 

He’s determined, determined to not ask the question, the question that is the pounding in his head and the fear in Natasha’s eyes. 

 

Eventually, he gives up and opens his mouth because he needs to know, he need to know who -, he need to know what -, he need to know if his last words to Steve were -

 

(“That shield doesn’t belong to you, my father made that shield.”)

 

He braces himself as he turns back around, but the words die on his tongue.

 

With all her strength and composure, Natasha’s lip tremble and her eyes shine like glass. 

 

“Come home,” her voice is strong yet it cracks a little in the middle, but Natasha never cries, no, Natasha can’t cry.

 

The words pierce his heart like a knife, his fists clenching under the table, and he knows he should consol her in this moment but too much has happened and so much has changed and Tony, no matter what, will always feel that slight sting of betrayal in his heart and -

 

“There’s still a few places I have to go,” is what he says as he slams a 50 on the wooden counter and turns away before he could see Natasha flinch. 

 

He leaves the bar. 

 

What he doesn’t say is that he’s unsure of what home means. 

 

The pounding in his head increases.


	6. Metro-General Hospital

It’s 11pm, the rain is thundering, a storm is starting, the hospital is still and a large, black pickup truck swerves into the packed parking lot at full speed and a man staggers out. 

 

He’s bleeding, he’s bleeding badly from his lower left abdomen and he’s already lost a lot of blood. If he doesn’t get help right away he might just bleed out. He’s leaving a trail of red from his car, a truck with a W forming a V on it and it’s from Volkswagen, and Christine Palmer watches him from the Metro-General Hospital window and thinks about the holocaust and her Jewish grandparents who she never got to meet. 

 

She snaps out of her thoughts, she’s a doctor, she’s a surgeon, and she saves lives. She presses the emergency call button and grabs the closest stretcher she can find. 

 

They meet it the middle, him staggering through the hospital doors and her rushing down the hallway floor. 

 

He looks up at her. His cheek is cut and his left eye is swollen. 

 

“Sir,” Christine says as she wheels him down the hall. “Sir, can you hear me? Can you tell me your name?” 

 

He mumbles incoherently, his face paling rapidly. 

 

“Keep applying pressure on that wound,” she tells the nurse as they near the operating room. She turns back to him. “You’re going to be okay, okay?” He looks familiar, but Christine can’t quite place it. 

 

The man takes a deep breath and opens his mouth as if to say something but he blacks out before any words come out. 

 

When Tony wakes up, he’s on a white bed with bright fluorescent lights surrounding him and a heart rate monitor beeping every couple seconds. 

 

His stomach feels sore and his head feels dizzy. He can’t quite place what happened and there are bandages wrapped around his middle and there’s a girl by his slide, adjusting his morphine drip.

 

She’s pretty, he smiles, pretty almost like Pepper, all soft hair and rosy cheeks.

 

She must be young too, far too young to be his doctor surely, but there are wrinkles etched on her face that remind him of May and her eyes are dark and worried like Natasha’s and Tony wonders who she’s waiting on, who she’s waiting on coming back. 

 

Tony clears his throat, and the girl starts and walks closer to him. 

 

“Hey there,” she says, her voice kind, “My name is Christine Palmer. How are you feeling?” 

 

“Not great, Nurse Palmer.” Tony winces as he shifts in his bed, “Where am I again?”

 

Christine reaches over and lifts his bandage carefully, her eyes scrutinizing. “You’re at the Metro-General Hospital in New York City. You came in with gaping hole in you lower left abdomen and a swollen eye. You were in surgery for four hours and you have been asleep for seven.”

 

“Also,” she says as she redresses his wound, “I’m a surgeon, not a nurse.”

 

“Sorry, doc.” Tony frowns, staring down at the white gauze on his wound. “Am I gonna be okay?”

 

Handing him a glass a water, she smiles at him. “You’ll be fine. You really should have come earlier, though. That wound is a week old and could’ve easily become infected. You’re lucky it didn't.”

 

She tilts her head at him, wisps of brown hair falling in front of her eyes. “It’s really smart, you know,” she says curiously, “that thing you used to adhere it temporarily. Using nanoparticles with biofoam? I never thought of that.”

 

Shaking her head, she laughs, “Well, it worked, I guess Tony Stark can think of anything, huh?” 

 

Tony fiddles with his stiff hospital gown, and does his best to smile back at her. “Yeah,” he says, but the word tasted bitter in his mouth. “So when am I getting out of here?” 

 

“Soon,” Christine says, slipping back into her doctor’s voice, “luckily the biofoam helped your body begin it’s regeneration process by itself. You should be out in a couple days.”

 

She brushes the hair from her eyes. “This past week has just been a bunch of people bring piles of dust to our door, as if we can fix it. You have been one of the only interesting cases yet. Well, there have been a couple incidents with car crashes, with the drivers disappearing. There was a particularly bad one involving a woman, came here first but we had to transfer her. Heard she just got out of a coma.” 

 

Christine squints at the distance. “We didn’t get her name down, but she kept saying the word “Happy,” before she passed out.” 

 

Shrugging, she turns back to him, her clipboard up. “I forgot to ask earlier. What caused the wound to reopen?”

 

But Tony is too stunned to speak. His fists clench the hospital gown. “I was driving, had too much to drink, stopped at a pub and got into a fight,” he speaks quickly, “big guy, red jacket, punched me right on the tear.” 

 

Christine opens her mouth but Tony cuts her off before she could talk. 

 

“The girl,” Tony says critically, trying to sit up in his bed, “what did she look like.” 

 

Frowning, she squints her eyes again. “Not sure. I think she had reddish hair.” She gently pushes him back down onto the bed. “Where were you driving from?”

 

Tony’s heart is pounding, his eyes dart to Christine’s frantically. “Uh, Tennessee. Listen, which hospital did you dispatch the girl to.” 

 

Giving him a strange look, Christine sighs. “Sorry, I can’t tell you that. It’s policy.” 

 

“Please,” Tony is frantic, “Her name is Pepper. I’m engaged to her.” 

 

There’s a pause, and the doctor’s eyebrows raise slightly in shock. She looks at him carefully, a sort of understanding in her eyes, and leans in to his ear. 

 

“I believe it’s Brookdale,” she says quietly, “a private hospital in Brooklyn.” 

 

Tony commits the name to memory, and thanks her. 

 

“Tennessee,” she bring the clipboard up again, “That’s a long drive. What were you searching for?”

 

“I don’t know,” he says and it’s the truth. He considers her. “ _ Who _ are you searching for?”

 

This catches Christine off guard. 

 

“I - I don’t,” she starts, and Tony can see the hint of tears in her eyes. “Stephen,” she gives in, “someone who once mattered very much to me. He started getting involved in the weirdest stuff. Like, black magic. Anyways, I haven’t seen him in a very long time and I don’t know where he is, or if he’s okay…” 

 

Tony braces himself for what comes next. “Is his last name ‘Strange’?” 

 

Christine looks up at him in alarm. 

 

“I met him,” Tony’s voice is soft. “He’s a good man. He fought against the greater evil.” He looks her in the eye. “I’m sorry. He’s gone with the rest” 

 

Swiping away her tears, Christine stares back at him. “I’m guessing that’s how you got that wound in the first place, huh. Fighting this ‘greater evil’ who’s responsible for this mess” 

 

She turns away. “I’ll come check on you tomorrow,” she says quickly, her voice only breaking a little bit. 

 

Her hand on the doorframe, she pauses. “They say you’re gonna fix this. That you can bring them all back.” She looks back at him, her face glistening. “Are you going to fix this?”

 

Tony is tired of letting people down but he’s more tired of the lies. “I’m sorry Doctor Palmer,” his voice soft, “but I don’t know how to fix this.”

 

She nods, once and sharply, and leaves the room. 

 

It’s not until she is halfway down the hall that Tony remember that he forgot to ask her why his head is pounding. 


End file.
